Tag: Spirituality

LEARNING FROM THE MONGOLIAN REINDEER HERDERS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

With my plunge into yoga discipline early in my adult years, I came to an appreciation of non-Western ways of perceiving the world around us. For someone rooted in scientific, empirical , Aristotelian logical thought, this came as a jolt. Or, as Gary Snyder has argued, every poet must have an appreciation of some archaic system of awareness, be it astrology, I Ching, tarot, palmistry, well, you get the picture. Just listen and look.

What I’ve come to appreciate is the alternative wisdom carried by Native American elders, gurus of all sorts, and the range of those labeled shamans, East and West.

And so, at last summer’s sessions of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, I was intrigued by an opportunity to view a movie on Mongolian shamans. It’s a remarkable work, by a registered nurse who has worked for two decades with nomadic reindeer herders in Mongolia. Having earned their trust and respect, and realizing their own vulnerability in the face of global changes, the shamans allowed her to film their healing ceremonies.

As I viewed the documentary, I was struck by how much of what she observed leads into Tibetan Buddhism, too.

This is remarkable work. What is healing, anyway? From a Christian point of view, I can say healing can differ from a cure. So just what happens in a shaman ceremony? And where can Eastern and Western health care interact? How much of our physical state is a reflection of our emotional and spiritual conditions.

We might wonder, too, how the Nativity stories would appear from the world view of the  herders, how much their insights would inform us about shepherds and angels. Would a stable be that much different from the homes where the shamans enact their rites? As for the Magi? Or the heavenly wonder? Or even an oppressive political and economic presence? As the Gospel message insists, the world needs healing, no doubt about it.

To learn more of the reindeer herder perspective, go to Nomadicare.

PLACING THE TRUTH IN ANOTHER LIGHT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

As one traditional Quaker query was read aloud during a meeting for worship, one of its phrases began echoing within me: “Truth in the heart.”

How remarkable! Not in the head but rather the heart! Truth, which we see so often as ground in facts and logical consistency, is now assayed not in the brain but rather in the core of our affections.

As early Friends used the word, Truth is much more of a verb than an immutable object. Think of the progression from true to truer to truest. Maybe you can sense that motion in the slightly fuller expression of that day’s query, asking if we, individually and as a group, heed “Love and Truth in the heart” …

As I said, a remarkable phrase.

REVISITING THE EARLY CHURCH, IN PART

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

While walking to Quaker Meeting one Sunday morning, I heard a familiar hymn from my childhood wafting from the open doors at St. Mary’s. About a block later, still humming along, I realized it was the Protestant hymn, “Faith of Our Fathers.”

Well, I thought it was a Protestant hymn, especially now that this music is as likely to be heard in American Catholic services as in the mainstream Protestant ones, which have been drifting toward the newer pop-influenced praise songs. (A musically literate friend, by the way, dubs the rocking chants the Rupture songs.)

Imagine my surprise in learning the hymn in question was written to commemorate the English Catholics martyred in the schism that created the Church of England!

Either way, the questions remain, Whose father? And which faith?

And, as a digression seen in genealogy, we can add that it’s often the mother’s faith that’s followed.

Still, any way you want to look at this, I think it reflects a widespread sense of an earlier “golden age” of faith. Early Quakers, for instance, insisted that they weren’t intent on reforming Christianity, but rather restoring it to a richness from “before the great darkness of apostasy that set upon the church,” something I’d deduced meant from before the first Nicene Council.

And, for balance, many later Quakers looked and still look to the upheavals of that first generation or two of the Society of Friends as a golden era of faithful devotion, something a closer reading of history will challenge.

Now that image of the early church has in turn been challenged in my reading of Richard E. Rubenstein’s When Jesus Became God, which focuses on the tribulations leading up to the Nicene Council and then flowing out of it.

The fact that both major sides in this confrontation were so violent, often as roving mobs, continues to rattle me, along with their allegiance to priests and bishops and the secular power those clergy already carried, even when Christianity itself was at odds with the Roman empire.

More subtle is the emerging schism between the Greek-speaking Christians of the eastern Mediterranean, with their complexity of thought and love of philosophical speculation, in contrast to the more action-oriented Latin-speaking Christians to the west, who lost much of the subtlety of the debate. Already, the tensions between the metropolitan bishops, or theoretically equal “popes,” of the eastern Mediterranean sea and Rome were mounting. If Rubenstein is right, the schism between the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholics was taking shape even before the Nicene Council, no matter how later history records the tragic events.

All of this leaves me asking just when the church moved from synagogues and home-based circles into a priestly class abetted by passionate mobs in the streets.

As Rubenstein repeats, there came a point when Jews were no longer part of the discussion but were rather persecuted.

Now, let us consider. Could that be when “the dark night of apostasy” arose?

MAINTAINING A GROUP IDENTITY IN A WIDER COMMUNITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Seeing radical religion continued through an elder-and-student succession over the generations also sets it apart from the wider society. In practice, it also invokes a circle of learning, all working together.

Sometimes, as in monasteries, the circle receives support from the wider society. At other times, it is based in circles of families whose identity somehow stands apart from the wider society. Upholding those values requires passing the teachings and practices down through the families.

This has been the history of the Jewish people, for starters, the preservation of a unique vision of justice and philanthropy, a critical stance from the mainstream, the independent role of prophecy in which political and social rulers are placed under a more absolute authority, monotheism rather than polytheism.

We see it, too, to some extent in minority and ethnic communities as they attempt to maintain their unique identities and cultures.

The Amish, of course, stand out in America as they pursue this.

One of the complications is that it can lead to a relatively small gene pool when it comes to finding a spouse.

In the Church of the Brethren, the annual sessions, which alternated between the East Coast and the Midwest, were often followed by marriage announcements. In other words, it was the place to go if you were looking. The shared values heightened the chances for a successful union, we can suppose.

For Quakers, the boarding schools allowed for some wider mixing than one would find in the home village. Still, the lines could tangle in time, even with a strict ban on first-cousin marriages. I remember a conversation with one young couple who told me they were also third cousins or some such. Don’t think it was aunt and uncle, but it seemed that complicated at the time.

Maybe that’s why I wasn’t shocked by the complex, tangled family lines presented in Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex or even the incest. (As others have noted, the reason the incest taboo is so universal is simply that the practice has likewise been so universal.)

In the novel, persecution leads to brutal oppression and massacre. The generations are torn apart. And then, somehow, they continue. What shocks most is the violence and hatred and related moral failures of the more “civilized” ships that fail to come to the rescue of innocent victims. But that returns us to thoughts of the wider society, doesn’t it.

LIMITATIONS AS A FOCUSING LENS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The old strictures sought to keep Quakers focused on their religious calling. As Damon D. Hickey explains (The Southern Friend, Volume XXVII, Number 2, 2005) them, “This cross, this obedience that was called for, was in the broadest sense the death of self-will and obedience to the inward Christ. … Thus, worldly amusements, especially dancing, were a waste of precious time and unfit the mind for devotional exercises. Music was the devil’s instrument. The Lord called his people to leave the world’s friendships, vain fashions, … sinful amusements, which would include the movies, the theatre and the dance. Perhaps this part would not much apply to our readers, but … in nearly all the so-called Quaker Colleges and Preparatory Schools dancing is practiced.”

He continues to quote 1943-44 writings by North Carolina Wilburite Anderson M. Barker, who argued that by yielding to Christ the Ruler

He will rule out all hurtful reading, and preserve all from putting too much time upon the news, and other such readings, to the neglect of the Bible and other good books, which have to do with our eternal interests.

Then there’s the quotation, “We Quakers only read true things,” told by a boy returning three novels he’d borrowed from a neighbor. Or what is erroneously sometimes called a Quaker hymn from North Carolina, which is usually heard these days in folk music circles, “How Can I Keep From Singing?” Or the recorded ministers who dragged me to an apple barn in Ohio for my first contradance, only to hear the next morning an elderly friend wearing a bonnet rise and wag a finger into the air, warning us of “that evil amongst us known as folk dancing” – while others looked down, sheepishly, trying to suppress a grin.

From the beginning of the movement, we have Margaret Fell’s objection to the strictures of a “silly gospel” that took hold, all the same.

Or later Quakers who accepted things that bind and pinch, as long as they’re chosen.

Or the struggle to keep a vibrant faith and intellect, rather than a barren one.

Always, the tension, in Scripture, between one world, “And God saw that it was good,” and another, sometimes called the ways of the world or even the wayward world.

So the challenge is in keeping a focused life that avoids becoming simply barren.

Let me point to the proportions of the classic meetinghouses – elegance as simplicity – plus the emphasis on philanthropy. Poetry as prayer.

So here we are, with our love of movies, music, theater, visual arts – and a tad of guilt?

I hear an echo of my father, with his passion for big-band music and some of the old hymns, “It would be a lesser world without music.”

I think, too, of a couple who lived without electricity as part of a strict economy that allowed them to focus full-time on calling and playing for country dances.

So here we are, with a visitor asking after the rise of worship – “Are you the pastor?” Before I could say anything, a voice behind me: “He is, he just doesn’t know it.”

Look, I want everyone to sit on the facing bench (elders gallery) at least once a year. “Her turn – next, a child.” Facing each other across history.

~*~

Elders 1

For more on my poetry collection and other reflections, click here.

Light 1

THEY’RE THERE, ALL THE SAME

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

How difficult it is to see fish in the water, especially when looking in from above. They’re so perfectly camouflaged.

It’s another of the things I’ve observed living along a river and near the ocean. Or even looking into the large tank at the New England Aquarium for the divers doing maintenance below, where only their bubbles give them away.

We look and still miss so many things right in front of us. As for me, I like to think I behold everything. Now what were the color of the bank teller’s eyes just a minute ago? I’m clueless. What what make and model was the car that ran the stop sign and nearing collided with us just moments before that? I was caught breathless. And you want to talk about God?

Of course, it helps to know where to start looking. If you can.

PRACTICING ADVENT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

As I’ve previously mentioned, Quakers historically were among those Christians who did not observe Christmas, much less celebrate it as a holiday. Of course, I’ve also noted that it’s hard to live as a “peculiar people” within a wider society and not run up against the festivities, especially if you have children. (It’s far easier to be a minority if you’re not the only one or even the only family. Preserving your distinct identity really does require a community.)

Add to that the fact that Quakers do not follow a set liturgy through the year, although I might argue we’ve had a very subtle one based on the seasons and our quarterly and yearly meeting gatherings or even our monthly sets of queries.

One of the queries, though, reminds us of the importance of preparing ourselves during the week for our Meetings for Worship – taking daily time for prayer, reflection, Scripture, and spiritual readings. In that vein, joining with my wife in a book of readings for Advent seems to fit right in.

Finding the right book, though, has been another matter. Some years, we’ve found that the commentary and accompanying discussion questions don’t really fit with the Scriptural text or the excerpts from significant authors that open the daily reading. Other times, the focus veers into speculation, away from personal experience and encounter, and has felt less than edifying.

This year’s another matter, I’m happy to report. The book we’re following – Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life by Margaret Kim Peterson – isn’t even set up as daily readings, much less of an Advent sort, but the pages are working … well, let me use an old English word I’ve come to treasure, goodly. Not perfectly, then, but goodly.

The narrative opens with a defense of keeping house – something that has, as Peterson notes, become tainted in modern American society, even as it’s taken on a Martha Stewart mythology. Put another way, what we’re looking at is theology from a woman’s reality. As she argues, feeding and clothing the poor doesn’t have to mean people we don’t know. In modern society, impoverishment comes in many forms, even for people who seem to have more than enough material goods. People like us.

You can see where this is going – right to the heart of our daily survival.

Of course, I can also ask: What recommendations do you have for next year’s readings? Anything that’s especially moved you? Are there particular practices you find helpful? Any noteworthy memories? What are you doing this Advent, if anything? If you’re not in a Christian tradition, are there other winter solstice practices you find satisfying and would like to present?

Advent, we should remember, is quite different from a holiday shopping season.

AS A SPIRITUAL AND MORAL COMPASS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Here’s a quote I’ve long treasured:

The statement commonly heard in some circles, “All religions lead to the same goal,” is the result of fantastically sloppy thinking and no practice.

It’s by a not-yet-30 Gary Snyder, “now making it in Japan” as the contributor’s blurb proclaims, where he’d gone to immerse himself in Zen Buddhism. I love the youthful bravura, not just “slopping thinking” but “fantastically sloppy.” And, of course, I totally agree with his conclusion that all religions don’t lead to the same goal, much less arise from the same promptings.

His very next sentence, though, continues to jolt me:

It is good to remember that all religions are nine-tenths fraud and are responsible for numerous social evils.

Ouch! Remember, he’s already deep in what would be years of Zen study in Japan and he’s aware of social evils in even that track? And fraud? Despite the many shortcomings I could cite in Quaker action past and present, “social evils” and “fraud” do not come up on my radar, even acknowledging the years when entertainment was taboo. As for the ashram? Well, I’m discovering much I didn’t see at the time.

Still, it’s that one-tenth that redeems the rest, the three elements Snyder values at the conclusion of the essay:

… contemplation (and not by use of drugs), morality (which usually means social protest to me), and wisdom …

The essay – “Note on the Religious Tendencies,” originally published in 1959 in Liberation magazine and republished a year later as “Notes from Kyoto” in Seymour Krim’s The Beats anthology (“Raw, penetrating stories, poems and social criticism by Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and many others” – Snyder was not yet famous) has not reappeared in his later collections, as far as I’m aware. I am curious if it’s merely been overlooked or if he’s rather backpedaled from its brashness. I still love to reflect on it, though.

“Social protest,” I might add, for me comes in traditions that challenge the conventions of the larger society at large. Think Amish, for instance. Just living, that is, as a witness.

FREE COFFEE, LOAVES, AND FISHES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

At a week-long conference last summer, the caffeine addicts made rounds through the campus bookstore, where coffee was available all day, unlike the cafeteria between meals.

So the first morning I poured a cup from the carafe and prepared to pay, I was told, “It’s free.” Eh? The sign says one dollar. “Somebody already paid for you.”

So I smiled at getting a free cup … and threw a buck into the jar for the next person to come along.

Let’s say simply, I had free coffee all week. Really felt good about it, too.

Keep thinking that was the secret of the loaves and fishes when the thousands gathered to hear Jesus. What happens when we simply open up a bit rather than hoard.

THE ECUMENICAL TWIST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 9 Comments

A statement by the Roman Catholic chaplain during a coffee table conversation back in my freshman year of college has stuck with me: “It’s easy to be ecumenical when you’re all losing members.” Remember, that was back in the ’60s, before the real declines kicked in.

At the time, I’d recently abandoned the mainstream Protestant teachings of my childhood and anything else that smacked of religion. It would be another five or six years before I’d venture into anything vaguely spiritual, and that would be by way of the physical exercises known as Hatha Yoga as they led on into meditation and then the monastic life of the ashram.

(Ecumenical? I may have jettisoned the teachings, but I was still a tad scandalized by the fact the chaplain smoked cigars, something that was definitely taboo among the clergy I’d known.)

One of the lessons of daily practice in ashram was the importance of upholding a tradition and delving ever deeper into it rather than importing from others. I remember Swami’s negative reaction when I introduced some Hindu chants that didn’t come down through our line. Sometimes, too, we’d have visitors who were essentially hopping from one yoga ashram or Zen center or Tibetan temple or otherwise exotic circle to the next, the way a tourist might “do” Europe. We were told to be polite but not expend too much energy on them, sensing their desire was basically superficial or shallow.

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate the unique aspects of different communities of faith practice. In each tradition, to go deep requires focus – and no one can do everything, much less do it well. “Ecumenical,” to my ears, has usually conveyed a sense of generic blandness, a reach for the lowest common denominator, an erosion of something.

But not always. Sometimes, especially in smaller localities like mine, it’s been a means of sharing resources for action. The soup kitchen and food pantry are two examples, along with the monthly gatherings of the clergy for mutual support.

An annual Thanksgiving service is a highlight, too, welcoming all faiths to participate. I’ve come to see it as a festival of prayer and music, along with a dash of Quaker silence or holy dance by an Indonesian congregation. It can be a sampler of what each of us does best – and perhaps even aspects we don’t get in our own traditions. If anything, I hope each of us comes away with a renewed appreciation for what we do uniquely as part of a broader mosaic.